


Standing Still with Fists

by PaperKatla



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of kidnapping, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Seizures, Service Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6587929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperKatla/pseuds/PaperKatla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took Cisco Ramon seven hours to die, and four months to return from the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing Still with Fists

**Author's Note:**

> I had an idea. And it spiraled out of control. And, yes. Sorry not sorry.  
> Also, I apologize for my extensive use of Spanish in this fic, despite the fact I don't actually speak Spanish. I hope Google Translate didn't screw me over too much.

* * *

 

"Bravery is not just standing still with fists ready for conflict. It is not just swords and battles. Sometimes bravery is giving up. Sometimes bravery is telling yourself that it’s okay to be broken, that it’s okay to not be okay" --a.k.| brave and broken

* * *

 

 

It took him seven hours to die.

Returning Eobard Thawne back to his own time did nothing. The seizures continued. The switch in Cisco’s head—in Vibe’s head—had been set and no one knew how to turn it back off. Caitlin washed the blood from his face, even as it continued to leak from his nose, and squeezed his hand, ignoring how cold and clammy his fingers were. Joe paced. Barry nominated himself as a go-fer, running around STAR Labs and gathering anything Caitlin needed. Harry continued to frantically throw out ideas, one after the other, trying to think of anything that would stop the seizure, flip the switch back to “off”. Caitlin tried to make him comfortable, to give him what muscle relaxants and painkillers she could, but the seizures always started up again and again and again.

“He’s going to be in so much pain when they stop,” Caitlin told them. “There may be cognitive damage. We should be prepared.”

They weren’t prepared.

The seizures stopped in the middle of the night, around 2:00 am. His heart slowed, stuttered, and stopped. His breath wheezed from his chest in a slow hiss. Harry led the resuscitation efforts, as Caitlin crumpled to the floor and sobbed into her hands. She only got up long enough to call time of death—2:23 am—before allowing Joe to usher her out of the room.

The police were called. CCPD and the paramedics were quiet as they entered the lab, and spoke softly to Harry, Barry, and her. Joe arranged to have the body taken to the morgue and the Ramon family contacted. The paramedics were surprisingly gentle with the Cisco’s body, and kindly allowed everyone to “say goodbye” before placing him in the back of a silent ambulance, and driving away.

Barry held onto her as they looked around the Cortex. Cisco’s grey button-down was folded over the back of one of the chairs, a half-eaten bag of off-brand cool ranch potato chips sat next to some pet project he’d abandoned near to the computers—Cisco was everywhere. Except he wasn’t. He was in the back of an ambulance, on his way to the morgue.

Joe drove Barry and Caitlin home. He arranged fresh sheets and blankets on the Wests’ couch, and called Iris to tell her what happened. So, while Barry cried into Joe’s chest upstairs in his room, Caitlin sobbed into Iris’s lap in the living room.

\---

She woke up in the morning, still on the couch, with the sound of Joe and Iris speaking in hushed tones in the kitchen. The smell of eggs and cheesy grits drifted out into the living room, turning her stomach. She felt sick. She couldn’t even imagine eating. She could remember, after the particle accelerator explosion, how nauseous she’d felt, and how Cisco had arrived at her apartment every morning with coffee and would make her breakfast while she stayed in her bed, curled on her side in the dark. “The most important meal of the day!” he’d argued. “C’mon, I even made muffins. They’re from a box, but still. You can put frosting on them, and have cake for breakfast!” He’d kept her fed and watered for weeks, until she finally managed to get out of bed again. She’d never thanked him for it. Who would care for her now?

Curling onto her side, she buried her face into a couch cushion and started to cry all over again.

\---

In the end, the Ramons cremated Cisco. Caitlin and Barry were not invited to the memorial, or the wake. And, two weeks after Cisco’s death, both Caitlin and STAR Labs are contacted by an attorney, telling them that the Ramon family is suing. Cisco shouldn’t have died at work, they argued. Paramedics should have been called. Francisco Ramon should still be alive.

Caitlin agreed.

They settled outside of court, and she let them take more than her lawyer deemed necessary. It didn’t feel like enough of a punishment, but it was the only one anyone was demanding of her.

“You gotta stop this, Caitlin,” Joe told her, sucking on his popsicle. “What happened with Cisco wasn’t your fault.”

It was a warm day, and he’d bought her ice cream from a truck that had passed slowly by her street. The Ramon vs. STAR Labs court case had come and gone quickly, and in the month that followed, Barry, Joe, and Iris took turns making sure she got out of bed, and ate something and showered. They did her laundry and dishes, and smiled for her even though she was sure they were hurting, too. It didn’t feel fair to her that they were doing all of this, when maybe they deserved to feel crippled by their loss, even just a little bit. Maybe they wanted to stay in bed. Maybe they wanted to cry at odd times.

“I was his doctor,” she argued. “It was my job to make sure he was safe and healthy.” The second time she lost Ronnie, she’d thrown herself into her work, but this new loss felt different. It felt worse. It felt relentlessly cruel, as if she someone was layering on blow after blow, waiting for her to give up. Who would die next? Would she give up then? How many more blows would it take for her to break? She sighed, licked at her own ice cream. “Joe, I failed him.”

Joe shook his head. “I know a lot of what they said at the hearing got to you, so lemme just say this—” He drew a huge breath and let it out in a slow sigh. “You are a wonderful doctor, who has probably saved my son’s life more times than either of us can count. This whole metahuman thing, though? It changes things. It changed Cisco. And that’s not something you could have planned for. That’s on Wells—the other Wells—and you? You did the best you could do, and I know you made his last hours as easy as you could.” Caitlin sniffed, wiping at her eyes with her wrist while her ice cream melted all over her hand. “Cisco wouldn’t want you to be doing this to yourself. He’d want you to move on. Be happy. You can’t let what you can’t change control your future.”

“I can’t just move on,” she argued.

Licking his popsicle, Joe paused, before he replied, “Why not?”

So, she tried.

She got a therapist, and talked about how she felt like she was always waiting. Waiting for friends to return home safe, waiting for answers about Ronnie, waiting for Jay to die, waiting for Cisco’s absence to stop being so painful. The answer, she found, was that waiting only made it worse. Her passive reactions to the things that happened around her made her feel like a perpetual victim. She didn’t want to be the victim anymore. She cut her hair, bought a pair of jeans, took krav maga lessons. It wasn’t quite right, but she felt stronger. Braver.

She also started toying with a new forms of benzodiazepine and levetiracetam. No matter how brave and strong she became, she couldn’t help but feel she’d been unprepared for Cisco’s seizures. Tonic-clonic seizures of that length were unheard of—as far as she knew—in medical science. If there were other metas in Central City with similar powers, then medicine needed to rush to meet them. To care for them. There were more speedsters in the world, who was to say there wasn’t more Vibes, suffering alone, with no proper medical care?

Her first paper—“Prolonged tonic-clonic seizure presenting in adult male with excessive electrical activity in thalamus and occipital lobe: a case study”—won her recognition in the medical field. Neurologists wrote response papers and sent them to her. It felt good to be doing something. She was doing good work, and making advancements in the treatment of epilepsy and even absence seizures.

During her krav maga lessons, though, she found herself punching too hard, screaming with anger, because it would never be enough. It wouldn’t bring Cisco back. Just like her work at Mercury Labs wouldn’t bring Ronnie back.

\---

After Harry confessed to killing Turtle and stealing Barry’s speed, she agreed to join Harry and Barry on Earth-2. The shining cityscape was like a utopian vision, and when she posed with Barry in front of the STAR Labs sign for a photograph, she couldn’t help but think that Cisco would have loved it. The science was beyond her, but the people were smartly dressed and everything felt different, but the same. He would have made a reference she didn’t get and they both would have laughed. Earth-2 hurt in a different, new way, but she didn’t bring it up to Barry—he was distracted enough.

Caitlin would have never agreed to join Earth-2 Iris and Deadshot on a mission to stop her evil doppelganger before, but she knew krav maga and had weekly sessions with a licensed therapist—she was more than ready to take on herself. The sight of Reverb, though, felt like a vicious punch to the guy as he sauntered into the room with an unpracticed ease that would never be Cisco—not her Cisco. They rescued Jesse, returning to be told about Jay having recreated Velocity 6 through 9 while they were gone. All in a day’s work for Team Flash.

That night, though, she cried herself to sleep, the memory of Reverb and Jay’s death by Zoom replaying in her mind, over and over and over.

\---

Driving back home after the King Shark case, she realized it had been four months since Cisco had died. He would have thought the giant shark man was so cool.

“Holy shit!” she shrieked, slamming on the brakes as a man stumbled out in front of her car, seemingly from nowhere. The headlights illuminated his small frame as he stepped directly into her path. The brakes of her car screamed along with her as his hip caught the corner of her bumper, and he tumbled to the ground. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she gasped, leaping out of her car. “Sir? Sir, are you all right?”

He lay crumpled on the pavement, breathing fast, sunglasses obscuring his eyes, black hair flared out across the asphalt. There was blood on his face, and his hands were skinned from stopping his fall. His fingers were twitching strangely, and he didn’t seem to notice her. She took a moment to note how ragged his clothes were, how dirty he was. _Homeless, probably,_ she thought to herself. Strung out on some drug or another.

“Sir, are you hurt?” she asked. “I’m a doctor, I can help.” Cautiously, she inched forward and knelt at his side. “Sir, can you hear me?”

Carefully, the man heaved himself onto his back, groaning painfully. His long, black hair fell away from his face, sunglasses falling off his nose. Caitlin gasped. “Cisco!”

\---

It took Cisco Ramon seven hours to die, and four months to return from the dead.

Now, the dirty, bloody form of some other Cisco was lying on the hospital cot in the Cortex’s medbay, having an absence seizure, while Caitlin frantically dug out the injections she’d been working on. Barry nominated himself as go-fer again while Harry and Jesse stood nearby, watching.

“How’s this even possible?” Joe asked. “I was at the memorial. Half the department went.”

“We don’t know the extent of Ramon’s powers,” Harry said. “Perhaps we missed something. Or this is a different Cisco.”

“I thought we closed the breaches,” Joe argued.

Harry shrugged. “I’m not an expert on these things, Detective.”

“Oh, _now_ you’re not the expert?”

Caitlin ignored them, busying herself with starting this new Cisco—this other, dirty, injured Cisco—on an IV. He was thinner than their Cisco had been, and paler, as if he hadn’t seen much sun. His hair was thin and unwashed, and just a bit shorter than their own Cisco’s had been. His clothes looked like they had been scrubs at some point, that he’d layered a duct-taped puffer vest over. His bare feet were beat to hell, the soles both calloused and bloody, and he held his broken sunglasses in his hands like a security blanket, screaming when she’d tried to pull them out of his grip before he’d slipped into the absence seizure.

He hadn’t spoken a word since she’d found—or rather, hit him, with her car—and flinched nervously away from anyone who got too near. “What happened to him?” Barry asked. “He looks sick.”

His comment was punctuated by Cisco suddenly “waking up” from his seizure and vomiting all over the floor. Caitlin pressed a hand gently on his shoulder, encouraging him to lie back, promising it was okay. Everything was fine. She carefully pulled the IV out of its sterile packaging, and rested it along the inside of his arm. “You’ll just feel a little poke,” she said, starting to press down on the vein.

About ten things happened at once—the other Cisco threw out a hand as he flung himself away from her, computer screens cracked, glass partitions shattered, and everyone found themselves being thrown back several feet as the other Cisco continued to scream. “No me toques! ¡Detente! ¿Qué estás haciendo? No me toques!” Barry was on his feet first; he inched his way towards the hysterical other Cisco, hands held out in an open, friendly gesture, promising Cisco that no one was going to hurt him, that everything was okay. “¡Alejense de mí! ¡Déjame solo!” Cisco shouted, his trembling hands held out, jaw set, legs apart—Caitlin recognized the stance. He was an inexperienced fighter, but he was still prepared to fight. It was admirable, but the way he was trembling she knew he wouldn’t succeed.

“We want to help you, Cisco,” Caitlin said. She stood up carefully, moving slowly so as not to startle him, and to make sure she didn’t hurt herself on the glass debris around her. “You’re dehydrated and malnourished, and I know how painful your seizures must be. I can help you.” She stepped forward and he pivoted, throwing out a hand in her direction. It was a warning, and she stepped back obligingly.

“¿Habla usted Inglés?” Everyone turned to look at Jesse, who was standing next to her father, her eyes locked on the panicked stranger in the middle of the medbay. Jesse had never met Cisco, but she’d been told stories. She knew what was happening. The other Cisco blinked at her, surprised. “¿Habla usted Inglés?” she repeated.

He glared at her, mouth puckered in a way that seemed achingly familiar to Caitlin as he sized up Jesse. “Tal vez,” he said, suspiciously.

Jesse smirked. “Es ‘tal vez’ cómo la gente dice ‘sí’ ahora?”

Other Cisco’s glare deepened. “Tal vez.”

“Entonces sabes que estamos tratando de ayudarle,” Jesse replied.

Huffing out a huge sigh, Other Cisco dropped his hands. His shoulders sagged as he dropped to his knees on the floor, seemingly out of energy. His hands were shaking again as he stared down at the scuffed floor of the Cortex. “I don’t feel good,” he said in English. The statement felt young and childish, and incredibly un-Cisco-like and Caitlin took it as her cue to slowly move forward until she and Barry were able to pull him to his feet and back to the medbay’s cot. She taped the IV down gently and added a sedative.

“Get some rest, Cisco, we’ll take care of you.”

\---

Caitlin was yanked into consciousness by the sound of Other Cisco screaming. She was on her feet, ready to fight before she even knew what she was doing, heart hammering in her chest. The Cortex was still dark, the light they’d left on in the medbay having been knocked over, and there was the sounds of a struggle from Cisco’s bed. He was still screaming, harsh sobs echoing around the room. “¡No, por favor! ¡Detente!”

The lights to the Cortex flickered on as Barry came rushing into the room. There was blood splattered all over the sheets and Caitlin could see that Cisco—this other Cisco—had torn his IV out from his arm. Barry tried to grab hold of his hands, only to make Cisco scream louder, panic rising. “¡No me toques!”

Barry leapt back. “Okay! Look, I’m not touching you! See? Everything’s fine.” He kept his voice steady as Jesse stumbled into the Cortex in her pajamas. “See, there’s Jesse—you remember her, right? You remember where we are? You’re safe. You’re with friends. Caitlin and I are gonna take care of you.”

Cisco’s breathing started to even out as Barry continued to talk to him, explaining how they’d found him, how they were helping him. Slowly, Jesse reached to take the Other Cisco’s hand and squeeze it. “Es real,” he mumbled, sounding awed, breathless.

Jesse looked up from their hands. “He’s shaking.”

He was. His whole body trembling violently, and—for a moment—Caitlin thought he was having a seizure until she started to hear the wheezing sound from his mouth. “He’s having an anxiety attack,” she said, quietly, as Cisco started to gasp for breath. Stepping into his field of vision, she ducked to look him in the eye. Quickly, he looked away, closing his eyes, breathing going faster. “Okay, Cisco, can you breathe like I breathe? Ready. In—” She drew a long, steady breath. “—and out.” She released it slowly and evenly. “Just like that. In and out. In and out.”

The attack passed slowly, with Jesse crawling up to sit next to the Other Cisco on the bed, while Barry kept hold of his ankle, rubbing slow circles with his thumb over the pale, bruised skin. Jesse didn’t hold Cisco, or crowd him, but sat beside in silence, holding his hand. Blood was still slicked down the pale skin of his inner elbow and down his arm, but he seemed to hardly register that. His eyes were distant, vacant, as he whispered, “¿Está viva mi familia en este mundo?”

Barry and Caitlin looked to Jesse, who squeezed Cisco’s hand tighter as she translated. “He wants to know if his family’s alive on this Earth.”

The weight of that question hit Caitlin hard. She had experienced the wrath of the Ramon family, after the death of their youngest son. They may not have understood him, but they were still fiercely protective of him. Their Cisco hadn’t seen it, his frustration at being pushed aside in favor of Dante had been too great. He didn’t see the way his mother cried during the court hearings, screaming at Caitlin in Spanglish for taking her son away from her, accusing her of negligence, of putting him in danger at STAR Labs. The Ramon family had been devastated at the loss of their son. But for this Cisco to have lost his whole family—his parents, Dante—it seemed unimaginable to Caitlin.

It was Barry who managed to speak first. “Si,” he replied. “They’re alive.”

Other Cisco’s face crumpled and he started to sob again. “Eiling no los mató?”

“Eiling doesn’t even know about them,” Barry promised, as Jesse translated. “Eiling hasn’t been here in a long time. He’s not gonna hurt anyone.” Licking his lips, Barry inched closer to the medbay’s cot. “Cisco, what happened to you, man?”

Cisco looked at Jesse, squared his shoulders, and drew a long breath. “Okay…” he began.

\---

_Cisco sobbed, his shirt sticky with his mother’s blood. The blood on his hands had dried a rusty brown and flaked off as he desperately rubbed them on his jeans. The cell they’d stuck him in was cold and dark, with nothing but a small toilet and a cot. There was nothing to distract him—no room to pace, no radio or television. He was alone, curled up on the thin mattress, arms wrapped around his knees. He couldn’t get the image of his family, lying dead on the living room floor, out of his mind._

_They’d been arguing over his music lessons—it seemed so stupid now—when Eiling’s men had kicked in the door. “Who are you? Get out of my house!” shouted his dad, shoving Cisco and Dante behind him. Dante had grabbed him, pulling him back until Cisco was behind him, his arms wrapped around his brother’s waist, while Dante kept his arms stretched out like a basketball player, blocking the path to Cisco. His mother was screeching at the men, threatening to call the police, that this was her home, to get out._

_Eiling stepped calmly inside, ignoring the chaotic shouting of the Ramon family. Armed military men with big guns poured into the room like ants from behind him. “Aurelio and Gloria Ramon, by the power given to me by the Metahuman Response Act, I am here to take custody of your son, Francisco,” Eiling said. The armed men surged past Aurelio, shoved at Dante who fought and kicked at them. “Any resistance will be treated as an act of treason—” Cisco screamed. The men grabbed hold of him by his arms and began dragging him towards the broken front door. His father and Dante shouted, fists flying, as his mother grabbed hold of his shirt, pulling him back towards her. “—and will be met with force.”_

_The pop-pop-pop of the gun firing was loud, and set Cisco’s ears ringing. Something wet splattered across his face, his shirt._

_He was almost too afraid to open his eyes._

\---

These were the facts about Other Cisco:

He was 25 years old, but sometimes seemed younger. Eiling’s people had taken him when he was 15 years old, and it showed in his childishness, his naiveté.

He was a leftie. Eiling himself had broken a few fingers on his right hand as a punishment, and they’d never quite healed correctly. Cisco insisted that the Other Caitlin had tried to repair his hand when she discovered what Eiling had done, but not much could be done by then.

He preferred Spanish to English. He’d stuck to Spanish during his captivity, simply refusing to speak English to anyone, and ignored all attempts by Eiling’s people to provoke responses from him in Spanish. He’d been stubborn, and now English felt clumsy and wrong in his mouth.

He liked comic books and dark chocolate, so, they brought him plenty to spare. Iris and Joe brought home-cooked meals, and Barry ran to Coast City to get pizza, or fancy Italian. He ate like a horse, but his constant nausea from the vibes and his own nightmarish flashbacks meant that only half of the food they brought him stayed in his stomach.

He liked animals, so Barry got him a dog—a skinny, yellow lab-Leonberger mix with a perpetually sad look on its face. Cisco loved him, and named him Buck. He kept Buck with him at all times, and the dog slept on top of him at night. The dog seemed to have an almost supernatural ability to know when he was about to have a seizure, and his barking was usually enough to make sure someone was around to catch him before he collapsed. The seizures weren’t stopping. There were too many things for this other Cisco to vibe on. The experiments the other Eiling had done had left him extra sensitive to the minute changes and differences of the two worlds. The least they could do was make sure he was medicated for the seizures and had Buck to cuddle whenever he did have them.

He had Vibe’s powers.

His parents were dead.

His brother was dead.

He cried a lot at night.

\---

_He was seventeen years old, and he was tired, and he was scared and today? Today he was not above begging._

_Eiling just smirked. “I told you there would be consequences for misbehavior, Mr. Ramon,” he said, with the voice of a tired parent._

_“No, por favor. Lo siento. Me comportaré.”_

_With a scoff, Eiling turned away and snapped his fingers. He marched away, ignoring the sound of Cisco screaming his apologies as the doctors and orderlies descended upon him._

\---

It quickly became apparent that sweat pants and old STAR Labs shirts were not going to cut it for a wardrobe. So, Iris, Jesse, and Caitlin decided to take Cisco shopping, with Buck in a little blue vest in tow.

It could not have been more of a disaster.

The three of them had planned the trip carefully. The mall was relatively empty on a Tuesday morning, populated mostly by workers, a few moms with small children, and a local mall-walkers club of adorable elderly people. Iris had taken some Spanish in high school and seemed to be able to understand Cisco well enough, meaning she would occasionally point things out and make bland comments about them in hopes of easing Cisco’s clear anxiety with the stimulation of being outside the quiet of the Cortex.

“Ese árbol es grande.”

“Me gusta que la camisa azul.”

“Esta canción es buena.”

If Caitlin was being honest with herself, the boring, clumsy statements in Spanish were starting to get on her nerves.

None of them were sure what exactly had happened on Other Cisco’s Earth, or exactly how long he’d been imprisoned by Eiling. The details to when and how he’d escaped remained a mystery that he simply refused to speak about.

Buck stayed close to Cisco’s side, sitting primly in front of him as Iris and Caitlin held up shirts for his approval. Like their own Cisco, he seemed to gravitate towards bright colors, patterns, and graphic t-shirts. Caitlin couldn’t help but find it comforting that some things were a constant—that there were recognizable bits of her own Cisco in this new, Other Cisco.

They cajoled him into trying things on, with Jesse always being able to coax him out and show himself off to them. They shouted their compliments, teased him, until he started to smile and strut a bit more. The smile on his face felt like a missed block to Caitlin, like a fist in her side. She missed her Cisco.

Their fun went to hell when Iris whistled.

Other Cisco froze, eyes wide as he started to tremble violently, breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps until he collapsed to his knees. Buck sank with him, dropping his body into Cisco’s lap, bumping his cold nose against his chest, and whining. Reflexively, Cisco wrapped his arms around Buck’s thick neck, his gaze still a hundred miles away. Caitlin could just barely hear his voice as he whispered into Buck’s fur, “Me comportaré. Por favor. Lo siento. Me comportaré.”

\---

The second attempt to get Cisco out of the Cortex went much better.

Joe and Iris invited him, Jesse, and Caitlin over to the Wests’ for a family dinner. Barry met them at the door, introduced Wally, and then invited everyone to sit. They played cards while they waited for Joe to finish cooking dinner, and while Barry seemed have the best luck at Egyptian Ratscrew, Cisco was ruthless in their brief game of Spoons.

Joe appeared with the baked mac and cheese, while Iris followed behind with salad and rosemary chicken. Everyone let Cisco dish up food first—Joe had explained to Wally that Cisco was a friend who had experienced a trauma and was recovering, so the youngest West said nothing as Cisco piled his plate high with mac and cheese.

The dinner went smoothly, with Joe telling stories about Barry and Iris, and Wally chipping in with a few stories of his own. Jesse even translated when Cisco felt brave enough to share a story of his own, about his brothers and him making their own rope swing in the tiny slice of woods behind their house, which ended with Dante breaking his arm when he fell off the swing.

When they left, Joe gave Cisco a Tupperware filled with left over chicken and mac and cheese, and the Other Cisco looked at him with such adoration that Caitlin felt jealous.

\---

_“You can eat something once you do your trick, Cisco,” Dr. Snow promised him. “Look, I brought your favorite—peanut butter and honey.”_

_Stubbornly, Cisco cross his arms, and looked away. He was eighteen years old now. Dr. Snow had brought him a cupcake with a candle, and a small flowering cactus for his cell. He’d woken up from the most recent surgery, head throbbing, to the sight of them resting on the little nightstand they’d allowed him to have. The cupcake had yellow frosting and a smiley face drawn on it, and he’d eaten it so fast he’d made himself sick. He was always hungry now, but he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t give in to Dr. Snow’s bribes._

_“C’mon, Cisco,” she cajoled. “Just one little trick. A little blast. A vision. Something.”_

_He shook his head._

_“Fine,” she said, suddenly cold. “We’ll see how you feel in the morning, then, won’t we?”_

\---

Zoom was still a looming problem. Barry spent a lot of time fretting over getting faster, gaining more power.

Only Caitlin knew how frustrated he became when Cisco’s panic attacks and seizures interrupted them. And how guilty he felt about feeling frustrated in the first place.

“It’s my fault our Cisco is dead,” he said. “I was the one who didn’t send Thawne back in time. I wasn’t fast enough.”

Caitlin didn’t usually reply. There was a part of her that wanted Barry to shoulder the blame she felt like she’d carried long enough.

\---

“We need to address the elephant in the room,” Caitlin said, walking into the cortex.

Jesse and Cisco both looked up from where they were sitting cross-legged on the medbay’s cot; Jesse was painting Cisco’s nails a bright yellow, while Cisco watched silently, a small, amused smile on his face. Buck was asleep at the end of the bed, snuffling occasionally.

“¿Qué elefante?” Cisco asked.

“What elephant?” Jesse echoed.

Caitlin threw back the blanket that hung over the edge of Other Cisco’s cot, revealing the stash of candy, chips, apples, oranges, and soda. She had known that Cisco was hoarding food, but had hoped that with the constant snacks that Barry and Harry brought, along with the home-cooked meals that Joe and Iris continued to provide that the hoarding would taper off. But, Cisco continued to have days where he would have two or three anxiety attacks a day—the trigger always seeming to be something new and unexpected—and, afterwards, the food would start to disappear from the cupboards and hidey holes around STAR Labs.

Cisco’s eyes widened and he ducked away from Caitlin as she stood up. Caitlin flinched. No one was saying it, but everyone had noticed—this Other Cisco was afraid of her. He flinched and fidgeted when she got to close, but never complained or said anything else about her. He hardly said anything at all. He accepted the treatment Caitlin offered him most of the time, and other times would push her away gently, refusing help. It hurt, in a way, that this other Cisco didn’t like her. She tried to keep that hurt to herself, though—Cisco obviously had enough heartache of his own.

He preferred Jesse’s company. Jesse was lively and young, and would read to him in Spanish until he fell asleep, would whisper secrets to him that no one else understood, and had—on a few, bright occasions—made him laugh.

“Cisco, you’re not in trouble,” she said, feeling like she was talking to a child. She wanted to scream. She shouldn’t have to tiptoe around him! Cisco was not some shrinking violet, or some helpless creature. He’d been brave, and clever, and kind, and outgoing. He’d bravely agreed to be bait to trap bad guys, survived kidnappings, and, once, he’d punched a man in the face after the drunken suit-and-tie had grabbed her ass at a bar. This Other Cisco, though, was in some ways still a child—a child who’d had his childhood stolen by a ruthless zealot of a general. “Cisco, I just want to be sure you understand, that there will always be food. We’re always going make sure you have plenty to eat. Okay? You don’t need to do this.”

Slowly, she reached for the stash of junk food, only to have Cisco leap across the cot towards her. “¡No!” he shouted, yanking at her hand. Buck sprang up, startled awake by the shouting and already barking. “No toques eso! ¡Eso es mio!”

“Okay! Okay!” Caitlin backed away, hands up. “How about a compromise? How about we keep a drawer of snacks for you—over there—and we’ll put all the chocolate and fruit you like in it. Okay? That way, you don’t have to steal anything.”

Cisco looked back and forth between her and his store of junk food that was now spilling out from underneath the cot. He chewed his lip, looking uncertain. “I promise, it’ll be right there,” she assured him. “Just for you.”

Slowly, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

\---

It was Harry who brought up the idea first. “Ramon could stop him. You said yourself that his Earth-2 doppelganger was more than equipped to take down a speedster.”

“Yeah, but Zoom still killed him,” Barry argued.

“That Ramon was weak,” Harry argued.

“And this Cisco isn’t?” Caitlin argued. “No. Absolutely not. He’s not up for that. He still hasn’t said a word of English since the first day, he has a textbook case of PTSD, he’s obviously traumatized from his captivity—”

“He’s an adult, he can decide for himself.”

“Except he’s not an adult!” Caitlin snapped. “He was fifteen when his Earth’s Eiling took him. He was a child. What chance would he have had to become an adult? When Eiling was torturing him? All that time he was locked in a cell?” She drew a calming breath that wasn’t nearly as calming as she’d hoped. “I won’t let you jeopardize his safety. He deserves peace.”

\---

His seizures were still painful and long, but the medication Caitlin had developed helped decrease the length and number, thought it made him twice as disoriented afterwards. It was how she found herself petting his hair away from his face during one particularly violent seizure. He blinked as it stopped, looking up at her in confusion before flinching violently away from her. She backed away. “I’m sorry. I forgot,” she said. “I forget, sometimes. You…you look a lot like him—our Cisco.”

There was a long pause where Buck leapt onto the bed and dropped his weight heavily on top of the Other Cisco. Caitlin watched as Cisco petted Buck’s fur, strategically smoothing down the thick tufts of fur as he mulled over her words. Then— “Did you love him?”

Caitlin was so surprised to hear him speak English that it took her a moment to answer. “Not like that,” she said. “He was one of my best friends. He was sweet, and we got a lot closer after Ronnie died. We took care of each other.”

“I’m sorry I’m not him.”

She smiled. “You don’t have to be, Cisco. We like you, too.”

“I’m sorry you scare me,” he said, fiddling with the thick patch of Buck’s fur.

She shrugged it off, pretending like it didn’t mean anything to her—like those words didn’t sting. “It’s okay,” she replied. “You’ve obviously been through a lot. Healing takes time.”

“The other you hurt me,” he mumbled into his lap.

For a moment, she felt breathless, her chest hurt, her fingers curled into fists. She drew a slow, calming breath—like the kind she took right before she prepared to beat the shit out of her punching bag. “I would never hurt you, Cisco.” He nodded mutely. “Did…did the other me work for Eiling?” she asked, feeling frightened of the answer.

He nodded. “It was worse, because you—the other you—was kinda nice to me. You—she—gave me treats if I was good. But she was cold, too, distant. She didn’t mind hurting me. She would always tell me that she was just doing her job. It was stupid, because I liked her. She called me by my name, she made me feel human again, and then she’d hurt me.”

Caitlin slowly reached forward, inching her hand across the mattress. “She sounds like a bitch.”

Cisco laughed. Cautiously, he took her offered hand. “I’m so scared,” he whispered, wrapping his free hand tighter around Buck’s neck. The words seemed to pour out of him, unstoppable, then, as he described metahumans hurting people, Eiling’s army hurting metas, and the people caught in the crossfire. “They hurt me. They were always touching me, and asking questions. They cut my head open. I thought I was going to die. And I—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She squeezed his hand, kissed the knuckles. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

They stayed, holding hands, until he fell asleep, with Buck on top of him.

\---

Caitlin downloaded a Spanish app on her phone and started practicing on the drive between STAR Labs and her krav maga lessons.

\---

_“Very good, Mr. Ramon!” Eiling said._

_Cisco stiffened as Eiling clapped him on the back. His hand was heavy and Cisco swore he could feel his teeth rattle. Splintered wood and chunks ballistic gel littered the floor around him from where his sonic blasts had exploded the targets into tiny bits. They made the targets look like people now, painted them like shitty mannequins and some cheap museum he went to on a field trip once. It made his stomach churn, to watch the poorly painted people shatter._

_Eiling turned around to smile at Dr. Snow and the other behind the safety glass partition. “You see, doctors, we can make an army with people like Mr. Ramon. An unstoppable army of living metahuman weaponry!” He turned back to Cisco, smiling wider. Cisco felt his blood boil, felt the ghostly sensation of his family’s blood, flaking off his hands after ten long years. “You freaks are all the same in the end,” Eiling sneered. “Malleable. Like a trained tiger, or a dog with its teeth out.”_

_The sonic blast hit Eiling like a punch to the chest, sending him flying into the safety glass. The building trembled as Cisco stepped forward, palms raised to strike. “Todavía tengo mis dientes.”_

\---

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Cisco jumped in surprise, spilling popcorn across the floor of the disused break room as the light flickered on. His hands were flung out in a second and Caitlin found herself thrown back several feet where she landed hard on her ass. She lay there for a moment, catching her breath, as the Other Cisco began frantically making apologies in Spanglish. “Oh my—I’m so—lo siento mucho. I didn’t—¿Estás bien? Lo siento.” His breathing grew erratic as he hit his knees hard on the floor. His fists clenched and unclenched without Buck’s fur to latch onto. “Me comportaré. Lo siento. Me comportaré.”

Caitlin heaved herself onto her knees and carefully took hold of his hands. “Shh,” she whispered. “It’s okay. You don’t need to behave. You’re fine. You’re fine.”

Cisco sniffled. “Sorry.”

“We’ve told you before, Cisco, you don’t need to be sorry.”

Pulling his hands away, he fumbled to scoop the dirty popcorn back into the bowl, frantically trying clean up the mess. Caitlin leant forward, sweeping up popcorn into her cupped hand. “Dr. Wells thinks I can stop Zoom,” he said. “But you don’t want me to.”

“I think it would be unfair to ask that of you at this point,” Caitlin replied. “You deserve to live a normal life.”

“But that’s not what I get, is it?” She sighed, reaching to squeeze his hand. He pulled away. “No. It’s true. My family is dead. I spent most of my life in a cell, being used as a lab rat. They made me this weapon—an unexploded mortar. Maybe it’s time to put the weapon to use.”

“You’re not a weapon, Cisco.”

\---

Cisco stood, shaking slightly, in the cavernous space of the abandoned STAR Labs shipping warehouse. Barry stood at the other end, hood of the Flash suit hanging around his neck like a cowl. Caitlin, Harry, Joe, and Jesse stood near the door, nervously watching the Flash and another Earth’s Vibe prepare to spar for the first time.

“You ready to help stop Zoom?” Barry asked.

Cisco threw an uncertain glance over his shoulder. Joe offered him a thumbs up, and he returned it with a shaking hand. He still had yellow nail polish on it. “Oh, man, are we sure this is a good idea?” Joe asked. “Isn’t this too soon? Did he have a panic attack yesterday with the fire alarm went off?”

Caitlin nodded. “I’m nervous, too, but…”

“But?”

“But he’s still Cisco,” Harry said. “He’s a nervous wreck, but he’s a plucky nervous wreck.”

Cupping her hands around her mouth, Caitlin shouted, “Creo en ti, Cisco!”

Cisco smiled. He turned to Barry with a look of concentration on his face. “I’m ready.”

Barry grinned, yanking the hood over his head. “Great, let’s get to practicing.”


End file.
